car suspension parts

Shock Absorbers-How to tell if your car needs New Ones – The Globe and Mail

How to tell if your car needs new shocks 

Eric Roberts‘s insight:

The car in the picture needs more than shock absorbers

Cheap Shock absorbers tend swing in and out of fashion? About twenty years it was all the rage to have your shocks checked out and replace, much the

same as wheel alignment is today. All the large equipment manufacturers were making machines to enable garages to check the shock on cars that were in for a menu car service.

So the role of the cars shock absorber is to keep the car’s tyres in constant  contact with the road. Giving the car optimum grip. Of course, when the car is cornering and braking. Shock absorbers are part of the cars springs  suspension. So if the shocks are worn, the vehicle’s ride and comfort is compromised, and you will get the feeling of drifting. Especially, when cornering and general insecurity when driving.

I remember visiting a motor equipment show in London; I think it was in Earls Court. One of the companies exhibiting at the time was SUN Garage Equipment. Subsequently, SUN were a well-known Garage Equipment Suppliers, well established company and had on display a wonderful looking shock absorbers testing machine.

I asked for a demonstration and was very impressed with it.

The machine worked by the car driving onto plates and a shaker, driven by an electric motor shook one axle at a time. The machine then printed out a sort of impression of how the shock  absorbers performed, if the lines were close together and tight looking then the Car Shock Absorbers were alright, but if they were sort of wobbly and not consistent then the shocks would worn out and needed replacing Shock Absorber Replacement was a lucrative business for us the Sun machine was very accurate and popular amongst our customers. In those days we used a few different makes but we became impressed with a brand called Monroe Shock Absorbers and tended to stick to this brand, for the quality and also we had a good deal from the local factor, which helped in our decision to fit them.

I was most impressed with this machine as it gave a print out and a visual aid to the customer. It was only a matter of days when I ordered one and had it delivered and installed. What a great asset this proved to be. I believe that VOSA the UK MOT governing body are considering a similar thing, with vibrating plates to test the shock absorbers

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